1,21 Kankerwatts
by BarthVader
Summary: The Kankers deal with an overdue power bill.


**A/N: ****Special thanks to Dusk for helping me iron out the kinks of the last scene.**

Five. Four. Three. Two. O-

The microwave turned off. And so did the TV in the living room. May pulled out the TV dinner and stirred it a bit, to spread the heat more evenly. "What's going on?" she asked loudly.

"Heck if I know." Lee shouted from the living room couch. A few fruitless clicks of the light switch followed. "Did Ma mentioned something about power cuts?"

"Nope!" Marie piped in, walking down from the first floor. "Maybe some dumbass with a backhoe has dug up the cables."

"You think it's gonna be fixed anytime so-"

She was interrupted by the doorbell. Noticing her sisters weren't in a hurry to answer, Lee grudgingly got off the couch and marched to the door.

"Who's there?" she asked.

"Energa Ltd.!" the voice replied. "The electricity guys!"

"We're not buying anything!" the Kanker shouted. The person on the other side knocked on the door again and slid some papers underneath. The redhead picked them up and skimmed through them. May and Marie watched as her expression smoothly moved from 'irritated' to 'confused', and then back to 'irritated' again. She unlocked the door and opened it, to see a short blonde in a hoodie on the other side. An official-looking identificator was hanging from a lanyard around her neck, and she held a clipboard in her left hand.

"Mrs Kanker, I presume."

"My mom's Mrs Kanker, I'm just Lee." she growled, shoving the documents in the visitor's face. "What the hell is this thing?"

"I'm Sam, nice to meet ya." Sam moved the papers away. "This is an official statement from my company. Lots of boring words meaning 'you're always late with the energy bill and we're fed up with this'."

Lee turned to the inside the trailer. "You, call Ma." she ordered. "I want her side of the story before doing anything."

May put aside her meal, picked up the receiver and dialled a number. "Hi, Ma! You can talk?... Great. Listen," she glanced at the visitor, "there's this woman claiming she's from the power works and we're behind with our bills… why didn't you tell us?!"

"She'll deal with that when she gets home, won't she?" Sam asked the other two.

"Yeah, but she drives an 18-wheeler for a living." Lee replied. "She'll get home in five days."

"Well, now they're cutting off our power, and that kinda worries us, so it didn't work out as you hoped, mom." the youngest Kanker complained. "...Where did you stash it? ...Great. We'll see where that gets us and get back to you. Talk to ya later." She hung up.

"Please tell me she wasn't talking while driving."

"Hands-free set." Marie piped in from behind her older sister. "How much do we owe you right now?"

Sam poked a bold number on the document in Lee's hand. "Forty-nine dollars and eighty-seven cents. You can pay directly in the office." She doodled a map on a loose-leaf in her clipboard, then handed it over to Lee. "2137 Sunset Drive."

"That's on the other side of the city!" the middle Kanker groaned.

"It's right next to a bus stop."

"Okay, so," May walked up to the worker. "Mom said she had stashed a fifty for unexpected expenses in the trailer. If we pay you off today, we're gonna get the juice back today, yeah?"

"Yeah," Sam averted her gaze, "not quite."

"I'm done!" A twenty-something Mexican brunette in overalls appeared behind her colleague. "Are the customers difficult?"

"Done with what?" Lee growled.

"As I said, you're bad at paying bills on time, so the company's moving you to a pre-paid model. You'll need to buy the electricity before you use it, not the other way around."

"Come, I'll show you." The three sisters followed the technician to their power meter, curious. The thing looked almost like the old one, but newer, and the mechanical counter has been replaced with a digital display, showing 0.0 kWh in blinking red letters.

"Kwuh?"

"Kilowatt hours." The brunette opened a flap, revealing a 12-button numpad. "Once you get a top-up code, press pound, and then put it in. Easy." She closed it. "You can buy a code in our office, or in the machine by the front door, if it's closed." She pulled out a few magnetic cards from her overalls' pocket, and found the one with the Kankers' address written on it with a marker. "The codes are assigned to specific meters, so you need this card to show that you are you." She gave it to Lee. "Any questions?"

"Just one: can you spare a twenty?"

"No, she cannot." Sam piped in, noticing her colleague reaching for the wallet. "We're finished here, so we bid you adieu." Dragging the brunette away, she muttered to her "You've done that four times this month already, you can't just pay off everyone's debts and ruin the plot..."

The sisters watched them walk away. "So, what do we do now?" May asked. "I don't wanna sit in the dark for a week."

Lee rubbed her chin. "There's a certain trio of hunks that could help us out with that..."

* * *

"...and they said they won't hack that power meter for us. So, we're looking for work and they told us to ask you." May finished.

"There are some tasks, but Rolf hesitates." The son of a shepherd was leaning against a fence behind his house. "Trusting the gleefully-amoral-Kanker-girls with important farm work might be a mistake on Rolf's part."

"I'm curious; do they not have personal pronouns back in Whateverstan?" Lee remarked.

The boy crossed his arms. "No, Rolf's Old Country's language lacks those. I'm paying attention to them in English essays, but in casual conversation, Rolf could care less."

"Couldn't."

"Didn't I tell you to let me do the talking?" May hissed at her sister. "We're trying to be diplomatic about this, remember?"

"Why?" Marie piped in. "Why can't we just sock him in the face, grab his wallet and run?"

"Raise a hand against Rolf and your fingers will be Victor's supper."

The middle Kanker was about to raise her hand up out of defiance, but Lee tackled her down. The two started fighting, to May's relief - they were too busy punching each other to interrupt her. "Okay, Rolf," she said, "I know we're not exactly the best or most reliable workers around, but we have one thing going for us."

"Which is?"

"There's three of us and one of you."

Without missing a beat, Rolf whistled sharply. A goat peeked out from behind a tool shed and bleated. The three Kankers stared at it, terrified. Lee and Marie slowly picked themselves up from the ground.

"That came out wrong." The blonde started scanning the surrounding for potential exits. "What I meant to say is, with four sets of hands we might be able to do whatever task you have in a quarter of time, leaving you more time to relax or focus on other things." The three flashed a smile, hopefully more endearing than creepy. "So, how does that sound?"

"Kanker-girls lack experience and Rolf might lack equipment. But..." he paused, thinking, "...there might be something."

"Yay!" May grinned.

"What, exactly?" Lee asked.

"Watering the to-mah-toes."

"To-may-tow!" Lee began, before May pointedly stepped on her foot.

"Помидо́ры." the boy replied, gesturing at the sisters to follow them. "Rolf's family has decided to focus on growing lots of those this season. To that end," he turned the corner, revealing an absurdly long hoop house, filled end to end with bushes, "we've constructed this foil tunnel." He grinned. "Some of the fruits are ripe already!"

"And you want us to hose it down?"

"No, no, not hose." He pointed at a watering can standing next to a wooden barrel in the shade. "You will need to mix the water with..." he snapped his fingers trying to remember the word. "Навуз? оборник?"

"The thing in the barrel?" Marie suggested.

"Yes, that. One part of that and ten parts of water. The water may come from a hose."

"Sounds straightforward eno..." the scent from the barrel reached Lee's nose, "is that manure?"

"That's the word!" Rolf smiled. "Thank you, language-speaking-Kanker."

"No, I'm asking if the thing in the barrel is cow crap!"

"Goat crap." he corrected her. "Traditionally fermented to-" He stopped, noticing the girls' faces had turned green. "Rolf swears, you suburbians are so fragile."

"Alright," Lee managed to overpower her disgust, "let's discuss payment before start."

"Obviously." Rolf pulled out his wallet and inspected the contents. "Twenty dollars sounds like a fair wage."

"You mean per person, right? So, sixty total?"

Rolf stared at her. "Twenty-five."

"Fifty!"

"Thirty!"

"Forty!"

"Thirty five, and that's Rolf's last word!"

"And a bucket of tomatoes on top!" Marie added.

"Return the bucket after and we have a deal!"

"Deal!" The eldest Kanker and the boy shook hands, then she turned to her sister. "May, run over to Two-D and ask him for three pairs of thick gloves."

"And Rolf will fetch additional watering cans." he said, walking towards the tool shed.

* * *

"Rolf is shocked." he said, exiting the tunnel. "Kanker-girls have performed a splendid service. No bush remained dry."

"That's what she said!" Marie pointed a finger gun at him. The three sisters were standing in front of the hoop house, drenched in sweat and faintly smelling of goat manure, but content that it was all over and they had just passed the inspection.

"Here's a half of the payment." the boy said, placing a bucket filled with tomatoes in front of them. Feeling a bit hungry, Lee grabbed one and took a bite.

"Yuh musht be-" she swallowed, "-you must be doing something right, 'cause they're the best I've eaten."

Rolf grinned. "The ox's heart is filled with pride! But the work wasn't done just for a taste of tomatoes, yes?" He pulled out his wallet again. "While you laboured, Rolf has talked with Mother and Father, and they decided that you deserve and need more than Rolf initially offered." He pulled out a banknote. "So, your payment is fifty American dollars."

Lee choked on another bite. Marie snatched the note from Rolf's hands and inspected it under the sunlight. "Alright, crap keeper, what's the catch?"

"Catch?" he replied, confused. "What's this 'catch'?" he asked the redhead.

She was too busy trying to cough up the tomato chunk, so May stepped in between the two. "A trick. A ruse." she explained. "Like, there's no reason for you to pay us even more than we earned, so we're kinda suspicious."

"But... you earned it." he said, still befuddled. "And you are trying to provide for your house, as opposed to the counterpart-Ed-boys and their pursuit of molten sugar. Rolf sees no problem."

With a khah! Lee spat out the chunk on the grass. "So, like, you're giving us cash for nothing just 'cause we said it's for a light bill?"

"No, Rolf pays you for a job well done, disbelieving-Kanker-girl." he replied. "Also, please throw that on the compost pile over there."

She picked the tomato off the ground and almost nailed the throw. May glanced at Marie. "Do you even know how a non-fake fifty should look like?"

"Yes, obviously," she spat back, "I mean, we deal with such massive amounts of cash on the daily."

Lee yanked the note from her sister's hand and pulled out a banknote that their mother had stashed for a rainy day, then inspected the two. "They look the same to me. If one's fake, then so's the other and we're screwed anyway." She hid them back in her pocket and glanced at Rolf. "So, that's it? You don't want anything else from us?"

"Rolf does not."

"So, we can go?"

"Yes."

"And we don't owe you anything?"

"Курва ваша..." he hissed, "You don't! And if you ask one more stupid question, Victor will show you the way out!"

"Okay, calm down." Lee and her sisters started inching away. "We've gotta leave anyway, gotta catch the bus to the power plant office. Thanks, Old McDonald."

"Farewell, Kanker-girls." Rolf turned around, about to return to his devices, before a thought flashed in his head. "Do you…"

He turned back, only to notice Lee, May and Marie sprinting away, as fast as their legs allowed.

"...require small change for the tickets?" he finished, speaking to no-one. "...and the neighbors say Rolf is weird."

* * *

"Thanks!" May waved to the bus driver as the three got off. "Man, how nice of him to let us ride without a ticket."

"We would've cleaned out the entire coin drawer if he let us pay for them with that fifty." Lee shrugged, pulling out the loose-leaf with the map. "Lemme see, now we should..."

"...go towards that office building with the Energa sign on it?" Marie pointed in the distance.

Lee looked up to see a small building, looking almost like every other around it, with some empty parking places in front of it and the sign her sister was talking about. "Yeah, probably. C'mon, let's get this done."

The Kankers promptly marched towards it. The spot was on the outskirts of the city, near a six-lane road leading out of it. A few office buildings, each only a few stories tall, were surrounded from the other sides by single- or two-family houses. There was also a small shop slash diner next to the Energa office, convenient for serving both the office workers' lunches and the residents' small purchases.

Lee walked to the automatic door of the office, and after a moment of it not opening, glanced at the opening hours. "Crap, they closed at five."

"Is that the machine the technician mentioned?"

The redhead glanced sideways and noticed an unassuming block of steel painted dark yellow, with a display and some buttons on the front. She pulled out the magnetic card from her jeans pocket and stuck it in the slot labelled "ID card". After a moment, the display proclaimed: "34 PARK N FL.; $ - 49.87"

"Frickin' sweet." Lee pulled out the notes and only then did she notice a label just above the banknote slot:

THE MACHINE ONLY ACCEPTS $1 BILLS.

The sisters stared at it in disbelief, before Marie roared "ARE YOU TAKING THE PISS?!" She started tugging on the machine, shaking it. "We're at the goddamn end of this chore, and SOMEONE just had to build some bullcrap obstacle for us to overcome!"

May restrained her sister. "Marie, stop! You're gonna break it and then we'll be in MORE trouble!"

"I don't care!" Marie shouted, struggling to get out of May's hold. "This! Doesn't! Happen!" She pointed at the "$1" label, "Who in their right mind would design a machine like this!"

**A/N: If I can interject…**

"YOU CAN NOT, YOU BARGAIN BIN RUSSIAN MOTHERF-"

**A/N: I just wanted to say that it's based on a real thing. I had a top-up power meter, and ** **my ** **machine only accepted five zloty coins.**

This didn't calm Marie down. "Oh, wow, so this level of fuckery is INTERNATIONAL?"

"Ah shut up, you're making my ears bleed." the redhead growled, sticking in banknote after banknote in the machine's slot.

Marie noticed a pile of notes in her left hand. "Did you- did you just get a hundred dollar's worth of singles somewhere?"

"Eighty." she explained. "Turns out that shop slash diner is where the machine operators dump all the bills, so that people like us can get them somewhere close. It's a stupid system, but at least we won't waste time looking for places to break a fifty." She glanced at the display. "That's the overdue bill paid, now we're just buying power to use."

She went on loading cash into the slot, while her sisters watched her, not willing to open their mouths and jinx it. After she emptied her hand, she pushed a button, and with a buzz, a small paper slip with a top-up code slid out of the machine.

"Boom." Lee said, pocketing it. "We can go home now and catch something good on TV."

"Wait, that's it?" Marie said. "We just... get what we wanted? And we even have some leftover cash for tickets back home?"

The redhead shrugged. "Apparently."

"That's… kinda disappointing." She scratched her head. "I kinda expected one last gag, one last inconvenience to finish this stupid story on a semi-high note."

May's stomach growled. "I'm hungry. I didn't finish that TV dinner..."

"Eh, I'll accept it." Marie shrugged. "Iris out."


End file.
